crowdsecurity/crowdsec · error

parsing: %w

Error message

parsing: %w

What it means

GetAppsecCoverage unmarshals each .appsec-tests config.yaml into HubTestItemConfig with yaml.Unmarshal and wraps failures as 'parsing: ...'. It means a test config YAML is syntactically invalid or its structure doesn't match the expected fields (the same wrapper is reused for the referenced appsec rule files).

Source

Thrown at pkg/hubtest/coverage.go:60

	// parser the expressions a-la-oneagain
	appsecTestConfigs, err := filepath.Glob(filepath.Join(hubDir, ".appsec-tests", "*", "config.yaml"))
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("while find appsec-tests config: %w", err)
	}

	for _, appsecTestConfigPath := range appsecTestConfigs {
		configFileData := &HubTestItemConfig{}

		yamlFile, err := os.ReadFile(appsecTestConfigPath)
		if err != nil {
			log.Printf("unable to open appsec test config file '%s': %s", appsecTestConfigPath, err)
			continue
		}

		err = yaml.Unmarshal(yamlFile, configFileData)
		if err != nil {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("parsing: %w", err)
		}

		for _, appsecRulesFile := range configFileData.AppsecRules {
			appsecRuleData := &appsec_rule.CustomRule{}

			yamlFile, err := os.ReadFile(appsecRulesFile)
			if err != nil {
				log.Printf("unable to open appsec rule '%s': %s", appsecRulesFile, err)
			}

			err = yaml.Unmarshal(yamlFile, appsecRuleData)
			if err != nil {
				return nil, fmt.Errorf("parsing: %w", err)
			}

			appsecRuleName := appsecRuleData.Name

			for idx, cov := range coverage {

View on GitHub (pinned to 909b515798)

Solutions

1. Run the offending YAML through a linter/parser (yamllint) to find the syntax error at the file path from the wrapped error message
2. Fix type mismatches: appsec-rules must be a list of file paths, scalar fields must have the right types
3. Restore the config.yaml or rule file from the upstream hub branch if it was locally modified

Example fix

# before (broken)
appsec-rules: rules.yaml
# after
appsec-rules:
  - rules.yaml

var probe map[string]any
if err := yaml.Unmarshal(data, &probe); err != nil {
	return fmt.Errorf("invalid YAML in %s: %w", path, err)
}
if _, ok := probe["appsec-rules"]; ok {
	if _, ok := probe["appsec-rules"].([]any); !ok {
		return fmt.Errorf("%s: 'appsec-rules' must be a list", path)
	}
}

_, err := h.GetAppsecCoverage(hubDir)
var yamlErr *yaml.TypeError
if err != nil && strings.HasPrefix(err.Error(), "parsing:") {
	if errors.As(err, &yamlErr) {
		// fix the offending field reported by yamlErr
	}
	// else: syntax error — lint the YAML file
}

When it happens

Trigger: yaml.Unmarshal fails on a config.yaml under hubDir/.appsec-tests/*/ (or on a file listed in its appsec-rules: entries) due to bad YAML syntax or type mismatches (e.g. appsec-rules is a string instead of a list).

Common situations: Hand-edited test config with indentation/tab errors; appsec-rules entries pointing to rule files with malformed YAML; duplicate keys or wrong types after a hub branch update.

Related errors

• while parsing capi whitelist file '%s': %w
• parsing console config file '%s': %w
• document %d: %w
• failed to parse %s: %w
• parsing: %w

AI-assisted analysis of crowdsecurity/crowdsec@909b515798 (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/07fac373f725300d. Report an issue: GitHub.